


Historical Continuities

by laDolcePita



Category: Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Science Bros
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-05-16 17:30:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14815727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laDolcePita/pseuds/laDolcePita
Summary: From the moment Bruce Banner is Heimdalled back to Earth, all anyone has talked about is Thanos and all Bruce wants to think about is a shower, a soft bed, Chinese food, and anything but mass destruction. It's been a rough two years so is it really so wrong that he overlooks the prospect of universal genocide because he's too enthralled with how good Tony Stark looks in glasses?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Set during and after the events of Avengers: Infinity War, this is my homage to the Science Bros whom I adore.
> 
> Thank you all for reading!

Bruce Banner hasn’t taken a breath in two years.

So blame it on the Central Park air, on dramatic flair, on thoughts of Natasha Romanov, on being propelled through a magic, time portal, but upon locking eyes with _the_ Tony Stark and his egregiously handsome, age-defying features, Bruce can’t seem to get enough oxygen.

He swallows, barely even registering the shocked ginger by the billionaire’s side or the time wizard emerging to his own right, and, because no one seems capable of plucking syllables out of the wordless atmosphere, he settles on stepping forward and wrapping his arms around his old friend with all the impetus of two years of being alone and yearning for this kind of human touch.

Tony flinches, instinctively returning the embrace, but his movements are circumspective, as if Bruce is a projection—and perhaps that’s exactly what he is—who might flicker away at any moment, replaced by the Other Guy or, even worse, emptiness.

 “What’s going on here?” Tony tips his head to the side, gripping Bruce tightly for a final moment before releasing him and turning his full attention to the impatient, cape-clad man who had introduced himself as Dr. Stephen Strange.

He could have been the devil himself for all Bruce cared, the constant reminder that death, Thanos, mass destruction, and fear ought to overshadow all other emotions. And yet Bruce had just caught his breath; between throwing himself off some ancient buffoon’s orgy spaceship to witnessing the massacre of thousands of innocent Asgardians, he’s pretty wrung out. He wants to curl up in someone’s arms and sleep for a decade.

Biting his lip pejoratively, he curses under his breath; there would be no somebody in a few days, much less in a decade, if he didn’t focus on the issue at hand.

Yet he can’t help but venture a quick glance at Tony and Pepper—he needs to stop overlooking Pepper Potts. Instantly, guilt deluges like bile in his mouth. Not just for the ephemeral surge of venomous jealousy directed at the couple, but also for how little he cares that the universe is on the verge of annihilation and how much he cares that, after a fight, Natasha would smell exactly like Tony’s deodorant smelled right now.

But he does allow himself one more slip as the group parts, the trio returning to Strange’s abode to save yet another reality. Grabbing Tony by the forearm, intercepting the man’s rolling confidence and innate swagger, he pulls himself up to Tony’s shoulder.

“I missed you,” he says, just loud enough, just strong enough.

“Why?” Tony elbows him good-naturedly.

Bruce shrugs. “After a while you start missing everyone. Even the most annoying people.”

“Annoying? You know that might be the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me. I was getting used to douchebag and arrogant dick, but hey,” Tony stops and looks Bruce over, “I missed you too.”

Then he’s rounding on Strange and Bruce turns his attention to the dim grandiosity of the Time Stone guardian’s library. His gaze falters at the massive hole in the staircase where the Hulk had crashed down to Earth and Banner had clambered out like some sickly, metamorphic gorgon. He makes a mental note to apologize for the damage later. When were wizards a part of this universe anyway?

“Tell me his name again,” Tony says.

“Thanos,” Bruce interjects. He moves closer, recalling out of the green haze a trembling Thor, a dying Loki, a mutilated Heimdall, and hundreds of crying Asgardians. He shivers. When was so much death a part of this universe? “He’s a plague, Tony. He invades planets, he takes what he wants, he wipes out half the population.”

They lock eyes and the green haze, along with the urgency to defend the universe, are replaced with the overwhelming sensation of how much Bruce loves being seen. “He sent Loki,” he adds, as if to rouse his own dwindling resolve. “The attack on New York, that’s him.”

Tony bows his head and when he looks up his face is harder, older. “This is it. What’s our timeline?”

“No telling,” Bruce slips back into his banter with Tony like it’s an old sweater. “He has the Power and Space Stones. That already makes him the strongest creature in the whole universe. If he gets his hands on all six stones, Tony.”

“He could destroy life on a scale hitherto undreamt of,” Strange finishes the sentiment, his interruption a little disconcerting. It’s novel, having another brilliant mind in the room. It almost brings back the sour note of jealousy but then Tony starts talking and Bruce reminds himself that imminent doom is approaching.

“Did you seriously just say hitherto undreamt of?” Tony struts like he owns the air he breathes.

“Are you seriously leaning on the Cauldron of the Cosmos?” Strange chastises like he’s talking to a child.

Bruce smiles like he can just pretend he’s not a selfish coward.

Historical continuities that bleed over into the present like a hole in an Asgardian’s chest.


	2. Chapter 2

“I don’t know Steve! It was like a fish, alien thing. One of Thanos’s little puppets. He wants Strange’s Time Stone. Strange? Dr. Strange? The wizard? Just forget it, I’ll tell you about him later. Yeah, I didn’t know we had wizards either!”

Bruce paces amidst the chaos of the Manhattan street. Maybe the hole he had put through Strange’s staircase could go unnoticed now, he muses to himself.

“I don’t know where Stark’s new place is. What, I won’t miss it? Sounds like Tony. Alright, yeah, I’ll be there. No, listen,” he holds the phone tight to his ear, leaning against a cracked concrete wall. “Thanos is after the Infinity Stones, he’s going to come for Vision. We need you to find him and come to the Compound. What? Yeah what about Tony? Who gives a fuck? I don’t care what happened when I was gone _two_ years ago just come back! The universe is ending and you’re still griping about something Tony said once upon a time? Yeah real mature, Captain America. Get your ass back here. And bring Vision.”

Bruce thumb moves to harshly disconnect the call, but he pauses. Tentatively, he brings the phone back up to his mouth.

“Wait, Steve. I’m sorry.”

Static.

“Steve?”

He clenches his jaw and is about to shove the burner into his pocket when the former soldier’s voice rings out clearly from the anachronistic device.

“Natasha’s fine, Bruce. She’s with me.”

“Steve,” Bruce’s shaky, breathless voice betrays just how much he needed to hear those words.

“I’ll see you at the Compound.”

A click sounds and the static drops dead, leaving Bruce standing in a ruined city street, clothes torn and self-loathing bubbling over. This was his natural state it seemed. So why did it feel so damn shitty?

 Sighing, he runs his hands through his hair and imagines that Natasha’s, or maybe even Tony’s, fingers are cradling his face. Where was Tony now? Hurdling at breakneck speed towards some spaceship? Saving a man he barely knew with no regard for his own life--for Pepper Potts, for Steve Rogers, for Thor, for Clint Barton, for Natasha Romanov, for-?

“You’re an idiot,” he mutters into his hands. “Stop preaching when you’re such a fool, Banner.”

He clenches his fists as he shoulders himself off the wall and picks his way through the mess of rocks and wailing sirens. He offers to help a group of kids who look as tattered as he feels find their way home but is met with wide-eyed stares.

A short, brunette boy squints at him. “Are you the Hulk?”

Bruce laughs. “Sometimes. I try to only be Hulk when people need Hulk.”

“What about today? Where was he?”

Bruce frowns. “I’m not sure. He wasn’t ready this time.”

This seemed to satisfy the boy who nods understandingly, scrunching up his small nose. “He’ll be ready when they come back. Then they’ll get what’s coming for them.”

Not knowing how to reply to this, Bruce offers a high-five instead before timidly excusing himself. After walking a block, he wrestles a discarded bike out from under an upended fire hydrant and pedals precariously forward, all the while grasping for any remnants of the green haze.

“Come on, buddy,” he furrows his brow. “What’s wrong this time?”

As his heartrate elevates, the haze becomes more solid, morphing into strange thoughts that clutter and invade his mind. It’s as if a foreign probe has led a foray into his consciousness, infiltrating so deeply that Bruce finds it difficult to untangle the edges of his own thoughts with the Other Guy’s.

Now, Hulk, or rather, Bruce—or perhaps both of them—is reeling, afraid, unsure, and always, always angry.

 _What is it?_ Bruce prods a little deeper, unsettled by how distant the Other Guy is in their arabesque dance of cognition.

The green recoils and thrashes viciously, as if insisting that it be left alone. Resigned, Bruce takes a few deep breaths, dispersing the green mass back into smogginess.

As he rounds the corner and notices Stark’s new skyscraper towering—Steve was right, he couldn’t miss it—in the distance, he can’t help but feel relieved. No Hulk was much better than Hulking out at any moment. After stealing two years of Bruce’s life, the Other Guy deserved a time-out, right?

And yet, there is a worry Bruce can't shake. He feels unbalanced, as if the angry, passionate, stupid half of him is curled in the darkest parts of his being, sullen and lost, and Bruce didn’t know what to do about it.

Leaning the bike gently against the wall of the Stark building, he looks over his rumpled clothes, silently groaning about yet another ripped jacket, before walking inside.

The building seems to be deserted. It isn’t until he walks out onto the top floor that he finds Pepper sitting at the edge of the balcony.

Her eyes are fixated on some point in the distance, reaching beyond the Manhattan cityscape, beyond the horizon itself; no doubt, fretting about Tony. Her hair in the urban twilight adopts a fiery red glow that, though not nearly as austere as another red-head he knows, prompts a rush of calm and sentimentality, dousing his tumultuous mind in diphenhydramine. Bruce shuffles forward softly to the yawning opening and calls out to her.

 She starts and, looking over her shoulder, smiles, speaking his name with inexorable warmth. Beckoning him to join her, she tosses her head gently, a nervous tick that seems to say: _I’m steeling myself. I’m ready_. It was a microscopic detail—blink and you’d miss it—but a tinge of disappointment still twists in his gut when he catches it.

“I guess I’m the only one who got the invite,” he gestures to the eerily empty room behind him.

She scoffs and rolls her eyes languidly, exactly the way Tony did. Tony lived to roll his eyes. It was as if every facial muscle worked just to amplify the exasperation, making it so that Bruce could feel ten different levels of affection in the sweep of an eyeball.

“Rhodey’s on his way. He’s taking us to the Compound. You’ll love the new place,” Pepper is saying softly, inviting him to sit next to her. “Have you heard from Steve?”

“Yeah,” Bruce sinks down, drawing his knees up to his chest. “He and Nat are going to find Vision. They’ll come back soon.”

The suspension of disbelief is drawn taut between them, an unspoken alliance shared amongst two helpless souls. Natasha and Steve would come back soon, just like Tony would come back soon. That was all they said, that was all they could say.

Pepper’s head shakes minutely. “You’ll see her again,” she plays into their theatrical performance of absurdism as deftly as if she were speaking the truth.

It’s his line now. He knows it like the back of his hand. The spotlight washes him in white brilliance. The audience awaits with bated breath.

_You’ll see Tony again too. Tony will be fine. Tony loves you. Tony’s coming back._

Bruce opens his mouth, but the words get lodged somewhere in his stomach, suddenly washing him in nauseating shame. Pepper’s smile slightly wavers: he’s waited too long; the silence has stretched too thin. The audience is uneasy; they know something’s wrong.

The sentence bursts out almost as explosively, uncontrollably, as the wretched kiss that accompanies it. “I love you.”

A strangled sound emerges from Pepper’s throat as Bruce’s lips find hers, but she doesn’t pull away just as Bruce doesn’t move closer. They simply remain frozen, eyes half closed, lips barely touching. It’s Bruce who ends the chaste affair after a few stiff moments, slowly leaning back, gaze locked with Pepper’s piercing, emerald stare.

The warmth from her soft lips has barely faded before he’s overcome with the urge to hurl himself off the tower.

“Bruce,” she begins.

“No, Pepper,” his voice breaks. Ducking his head into his hands, he takes a shuddering breath. “I’m so sorry. Pepper, I didn’t mean that, you know I didn’t mean that.”

Pepper is fidgeting with the cuff of her blouse, but her eyes are challenging and stoic as she asks, “Then why’d you do it?”

Bruce shakes his head and wills the tears sliding down his cheeks to slink back into their ducts. “I don’t know.”

And that’s not really the truth either. He did it because he had lingered too long. He did it because it’s been two years and Pepper is the closest to Tony he’d ever be. He did it because he feels empty without the steady green haze. He did it because her hair was red and her eyes were hard and resolute and he had missed out on a lifetime of red, red, red.

And it hurts even more when a hand rests on his back and he looks up and realizes that she is forgiving him.

“I know you miss her, Bruce,” Pepper puts her head onto his shoulder. “Grief makes you do fucking stupid things.”

“It’s not grief,” Bruce wipes at his face with the back of his threadbare sleeve, “I’m just a despicable person.”

“In that case, I’m worse.”

“I came onto you! You can’t just let me get away with that!” Yanking his shoulder away from her warmth, her understanding, her care, all the things he didn’t deserve, Bruce rises shakily to his feet. “You should be screaming at me. Hit me or something! Spit on me! I’m a coward! The world is falling apart and I can’t bear to look you in the eyes and tell you Tony will be fine because I’m scared as hell that he won’t. I’m scared as hell nobody’ll be fine and I’ll be the only one left because I can’t die no matter how much I hate myself and shoot myself and-.”

“I’m pregnant, Bruce.”

Bruce stops, mouth slightly ajar, and is immediately struck by how dark it’s become. The lights from within the tower bathe them in a subdued yellow hue as the city fills in the rest of their spectral outlines with a multitude of dazzling colors.

It’s almost too poetic; they have two sides: the strong, consistent, everything’s-going-to-be-alright and then pandemonium.

And Bruce is still standing, loose-jawed, and Pepper is still sitting, despair coloring her cheeks. So, he drops to his knees and throws his arms around her shoulders and buries his head into the crook of her neck.

“I’m here,” he says, because what else is there to say? “I’ll always be here. I’m sorry. So, so sorry.”

And he keeps saying these meaningless phrases because he can’t possibly trade his own secrets with her no matter how drunk he is on this new vein of truth they’ve sank their teeth into.

“Maybe if they don’t come back Bruce,” she’s muttering. “Maybe we could. I mean, if you would? Would you?”

Bruce just clings on tighter. The city thrums behind them and the tower whirs with mounting light to ward off the oncoming crescendo of darkness. A helicopter rumbles in the distance, its massive Avengers logo proclaiming that it had come to carry them to their safe haven—to the Compound. Watching the approaching vehicle, he presses a hand protectively against Pepper’s head before helping her up and away from the path of the whirling machine. She’s still leaning against him as they climb aboard and Rhodey salutes him, remarking on how long it has been. By the time they’re in the air and Rhodey is trying to fill him in on everything that’s happened in the past two years, Bruce is asleep, sprawled out across three chairs while Rhodey and Pepper chuckle at his soft snores before draping a blanket over his chest. And all the while Pepper’s question hangs in the air, unanswered, because amongst two helpless souls, questions like these already have answers.

Grief makes you say fucking stupid things.


End file.
